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We will be forever somehow wrong

You were somehow wrong, wrong, somehow wrong!!!! Moreover, both of us will be forever somehow ‘wrong.’

I’ve told you before, and you seem to believe that I know exactly what you think and what goes in your head, that I understand you fully by reading between your words.

What I might do, more as a survival instinct than anything else is not to read between the lines, and instead to ask for explanations of the words and expressions that tend to have a double entendre. Asking makes my answer sound “politically correct.”

Indeed, the charm of it soon thins out. No question that with friends that I seem to meet face to face frequently I end up learning their reactions, facial expressions, hand gestures, I hear the voice modulation, and the emotional patterns. Once I reach a level of comfort, I allow myself to read between the lines. Even then, sooner or later I ‘validate’ my assumptions.

I do that because one of these people might bring up an older discussion that we had had and with that, they tell me their interpretation of that discussion. Not rarely, I’ve felt dumbstruck.

Why? Well, after spending a reasonable amount of time together, I expect some of my friends to know me close to as I know myself. When I hear their take, I suddenly realize that the friend saw in me somebody else, different from who I am, someone I don’t recognize. Sometimes a friend interprets my reaction as emotions I never had as if the friend placed me on a path I never, ever intended to travel.

Ironically, I don’t always challenge that, due to lack of time or due to the tension that would create by trying to redress their take. Many times, I don’t even intend to address it via an email or whatever communication means we might employ.

I have a feeling that you did the same. You read my words mot-à-mot. I’m reviewing the discussion we had at the time, and I’m sure that what I wanted to convey was: “I enjoy receiving your messages and your comments.” It was my response to you stating about yourself that you were a bore. It was a way of my negating what you said.

Indeed, it intrigues me that you were hurt and left with a bitter taste. It is because I didn’t understand what you meant and you expected me to read between the lines.